I finally made it to ballet last week, after not having been for the previous six classes (which actually spanned three months). Last week we had a new teacher and lots of new people, so it was all very slow. Which was just as well because three months was long enough for me to have forgotten a lot.

And then tonight was still fairly slow. We did a step that I've hardly done before and I could never get, but I finally got it tonight. I didn't think the teacher saying "pretend the floor is hot" would help, but for some reason it did. It was a really good feeling to finally be doing it and not just going through the motions in vaguely the right direction.

However, we did do a lot of going up and down on tiptoes and a lot of stuff holding onto the barre and moving one leg, therefore make the one you're standing on ache. And holding your arm out. Walking out of there afterwards to the car park involved my slow walking and made me wish I could have walked home because pressing the clutch down basically involves going on tiptoe with your leg stretched (I can't move the seat closer or I hit my knees on the bit of dashboard below the steering wheel). Basically, I hurt.

This term at ballet we had a new teacher. It wasn't the first time - I've been doing it for three years (which sounds like such a long time!) and this is the third teacher we've had (not counting the ones who only did a week).

I missed the first two weeks of term with my cold, so when I went back everyone else had had two weeks to get used to the teacher and I hadn't done any ballet for three months. So I struggled. It was the first time since I started that I came away feeling like I couldn't do anything at all.

However, the two weeks after that weren't so bad. A lot of it involves steps or movements I already know, just in a different sequence. Some of it is new - there's one we did that's called something like "step of the horse" in French, which is quite amusing.

I did like the last teacher - as I've liked all the teachers - so I'm sorry to not have her teaching us any more. But it's been good to have a new one too because sometimes I felt like I was doing the same things endlessly. Now it's a little different and there are some things I can do and some I can't. Some I do right and some I don't - this teacher corrects us a lot more, which is probably a good thing. Although the one thing that all three teachers have corrected me on is my shoulders - I get tense trying to remember what I'm doing and trying to do it right and my shoulders tense. Which they shouldn't. I have to make an effort to untense them.

Various people in the class have said various things about it and whether or not they like it with this teacher. It took me a few weeks to decide, but I decided I do. I'm enjoying myself, which is the most important thing, and it's challenging me, which is good because otherwise it would be boring.

I have finished the second draft of my Big Bang fic! I read it through and only have one plot hole now, and that should be easily fixed by adding a few lines. I have to get the word count up by 4500 words, but since it felt rushed and there are still a lot of words and sentences that need changing, that shouldn't be a problem. I just have five and a half weeks to get it done and into beta before Wimbledon. Which ought to be do-able, I'm just going to take a break to get it out of my head a bit and while I write something for inmemoryofsjs.

Ballet was cancelled for the second time this term (and it's only week 3). The arts centre just give the impression of people who don't know what they're doing. I get the impression that they moved it from Thursday to Wednesday just because, which then meant the last two terms' teacher could no longer make it, rather than the other way round. I just want to go over there and organise them. Or tell them what I think about that, but I won't manage to do it politely, so I won't. But I was really enjoying ballet and it was helping, so I'm hating not going.

Although tonight I got some Rotaract stuff done. It's just starting to feel like a long drawn out death at the moment. I used to come away from Rotaract meetings feeling all excited about Rotaract and now I come away feeling depressed. It makes it really hard to do the jobs I need to do for it because I don't want to. Partly because they're the usual things to keep it running that seem pointless when it's closing, but aren't because they still need to happen for the next month and a half. Or they're things to close the club and I don't want to.

The new ballet term started last week, so tonight was the second class. It's such a different experience from last term when I had no idea what I was doing and gradually got the hang of it and then it was the end of term. This term there's a few of us from last term and lots of new people. It's strange having twice the number of people I was used to before.

But it's also really strange feeling like I know what I'm doing. I don't completely, but everything is either the same as last term or similar enough that I understand it relatively easy. It makes it all a lot easier, so I can concentrate on doing it right, not just vaguely doing the right thing at the right time. Not that I always manage that anyway, but.

The next thing will be remembering to look up and put my shoulders down, but perhaps that will be next term.

I keep thinking I should update, but then I have nothing to say. I feel like my life has nothing going on it at the moment. Or at least nothing interesting. Which I've just realised is a terrible lead in to this post, which is a summary of what I'm up to... Read more...